“Bree, come on,” I urge, my teeth knocking. “We have to move.”
“C-cold,” she stutters. “Too c-cold. Can barely move.”
“That’s why you have to.”
She shakes, trembles.
“Dammit, Bree. Move your feet!”
And at the order, she does.
Flames still eat at the two destroyed cars. We stumble toward the undamaged one, which sits before a crop of trees. I pull the back open, my hands shaking against my will. The vehicle is loaded with gear: sleeping bags, blankets, Order packs, spare uniforms. These cars weren’t planning on returning to the lookout point.
I go to the front. There are keys dangling near the wheel. I watched Bo drive before, and we don’t have to go far now, just enough to be safe for the night. I’ll have to manage. We’ll freeze to death if we waste time looking for the others, and for all I know, the Order is already on our tail.
“Get in,” I tell Bree. She does.
I turn the key as I saw Bo do in Taem. The car roars to life. I step on the pedal. The vehicle growls, but doesn’t move. I press my foot down harder.
“Sh-shift,” Bree says. “Shift it to drive.”
I follow her eyes to a lever between our seats. I move it as she instructed, and this time, when I put pressure on the pedal, the car lunges forward.
We drive—no, lurch—following the Order’s tire tracks from when they first ambushed us. I take a sharp turn, leaving their path, and head into a field of stiff, tall grass. Everything is gray and lifeless under the snowfall. I watch a compass mounted near the shift lever so I’ll know how to find the beach again later. There is hot air blasting from vents behind the wheel, but it feels like the most feeble form of heat, too weak to penetrate the icy shell that is settling over my body.
I don’t stop driving until the field dips low enough to keep us hidden from anyone passing by way of the Order’s original tracks. The snow and wind should cover our own in time, making us invisible. I get out of the car, hands still shaking, and pull the gear from the back. My teeth chatter. My body wants to seize up, stop working, but some innate drive orders me to hurry, tells me what to do and in what order.
I blink, and I’ve lined the back of the car with sleeping bags. I blink again and I’ve turned the vehicle off, shut all the doors to lock the heat within. I blink a third time, and I’m stripping off my jacket.
“Take your clothes off,” I order Bree.
She’s just standing there shaking, her hair wet against her neck, her face so pale she already looks dead.
“Bree!”
“C-can’t . . . I can’t.”
“You can. You can do anything I can do.”
And something in those words wakes her. She pulls off her jacket and tugs her shirt overhead. And then another layer, and another. She fumbles with her pants but her trembling fingers can’t manage the buttons. I help her out of them. I take her boots off, too. And her socks. I dry her hair as best I can with a blanket, help her into one of the spare Order uniforms, and send her into the warmth of the car.
My fists are cramping up. I can barely move, barely breathe. I’m so cold I think my lungs might freeze solid, shattering when I take my next breath. I pull off my shirt, my pants, everything. I force my cramping limbs into dry clothes and crawl back into the car.
I lie down alongside Bree. She is shaking uncontrollably. I’m shaking, too.
“Bree?”
There’s something else I want to say, about body warmth, and staying near each other, but I can’t form the words. I nudge closer to her, pull her into my chest, wrap us in the blankets. I hold her until our convulsions turn to trembles, which turn to shivers that finally fade.
It takes a very, very long time, but I finally feel warmth. It starts in my chest and spreads to my torso, then knees, then toes, and it is as I fall asleep that I no longer fear I won’t wake up.
SEVENTEEN
WE RISE WITH THE SUN.
The storm has left no more than three inches of snow on the ground, meaning it must have arrived in a hurry and died out nearly as fast. Our clothes, which I draped over the front seats last night to dry, are still stiff and damp with salt water. We’ll be wearing the Order uniforms for a while longer.
Bree nurses a fire to life, a blanket pulled tightly around her shoulders, while I dig through the car and assess supplies. Our personal gear—bags, tents, weapons, additional clothes, matches, flashlights, everything—was in the lifeboat that Xavier and the others escaped on. I find some wanted posters with my face on them in the car and pass them to Bree. She adds them to the fire, which is smoking from the mostly green wood she’s had to use for the base. Still, it’s emitting warmth, and for that I’m grateful. A blanket, no matter how you wrap it, is not terribly warm. We need jackets. Underwear wouldn’t hurt either, given how damn stiff the uniforms are.
“Do you think they made it?” Bree asks.
“They had to. If we don’t believe they did, we’re already doomed.”
“And Sammy?”
“He jumped when I went back for you. If he got to shore and found the others, he might have had a chance. They had extra clothing, could have started a fire and made sure he was dry. If not, I don’t see how he would have survived the night.”
Bree bends to blow on the flames. I’m glad she hasn’t asked about my father yet. I don’t have the strength to even think about him. When she glances back at me, her face is softer than I’ve ever seen it. There is no scowl on her lips, no harsh angle to her brows.
“Last night,” she says. “I was so cold my hands wouldn’t work. And it hurt to breathe. I couldn’t . . . I’m sorry I wasn’t—”
“Stop it. You were fine. You were perfect.” She messes with the fire a bit more, avoids my eyes. “I mean it, Bree. I wouldn’t have made it through last night if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Me?” She straightens up, scoffing. “You were the one who did everything. You got me off the ship, you revived me on the raft, you set up the blankets—”
“And you kept me warm. All that stuff I did earlier? It would have been pointless if I’d frozen to death during the night. I kept you alive, and then you kept me alive. We kept each other warm. We got through it together.”
She forces a smile, a tiny lopsided one. Her braided hair has dried in an odd manner, half of it clumped at the side of her neck in a mangled knot, but she somehow still manages to be stunning. It’s her lips in that smile. Her chin, held defiantly high. It must require her to stifle every ounce of her pride, because she’s frowning viciously when she adds, “I’m glad we’re talking again.”
“Yeah.” I smile, unable to hide my amusement. “Me, too.”
There aren’t any jackets in the car, but I do find clean cotton shorts.
“Underwear?” I say, tossing the smallest pair to Bree. She turns her back to me, and shamelessly starts changing. I should really look away, but I can’t help myself. When she’s fully clothed, she goes back to poking at the fire, either unaware that I’ve been staring at her, or not concerned enough to care. I change, too, throw the blanket back over my shoulders, and return to assessing the gear.